BASIS OF SECURITY

But no one who thinks that power--whether a Monopoly, a Balance, or even
a Community of Power is the ultimate guardian angel of our peace, has
the root of the matter in him. Men, said Burke, are not governed
primarily by laws, still less by force; and behind all power stands
opinion. To believe in public opinion rather than in might excludes the
believer from the regular forces of militarism and condemns him as a
visionary and blind. For advocates of the Balance of Power bear a
striking resemblance to the Potsdam school; and even so moderate a
German as the late Dr. Rathenau declared in his unregenerate days before
the war that Germans were not in the habit of reckoning with public
opinion. Nevertheless, there is a frontier in the world which for a
century and more has enjoyed a security which all the armaments of
Prussian militarism could not give the German Fatherland; and the
absolute security of that frontier rests not upon a monopoly nor a
community, still less upon a balance of power, but on the opinion held
on both sides of that frontier that all power is irrational and futile
as a guarantee of peace between civilised or Christian people.

Let us look at that frontier for a moment. It is in its way the most
wonderful thing on earth, and it holds a light to lighten the nations
and to guide our feet into the way of peace. It runs, of course, between
the Dominion of Canada and the United States of America across the great
lakes and three thousand miles of prairie; and from the military and
strategic point of view it is probably the worst frontier in the world.
Why then is it secure? Is it because of any monopoly or community or
balance of power? Is it because the United States and the British